One of my best friends came to stay with me for the weekend. Whenever we get together, we always end up playing board games. She brought along the board game, Scythe, which I have never played before. I didn’t think I would like this game as it was explained to me as a mixture of Settlers of Catan and Risk. However, once I was able to comprehend the rules, I would definitely play Scythe again.

Scythe is an alternative 1920s engine building game where players will expand their group by farming, building factories and possibly colonizing. I picked Bjorn & Mox because it was the most Minnesotan group to pick from. Bjorn’s special ability is being able to cross rivers. I was able to utilize this ability to access a special reaction token. To win, it’s all about how many points a player accumulates in the game. One reason I was able to get most of my points is because of my popularity. Popularity is underrated and since I didn’t colonize and was nice to people, I gained more points at the end of the game. If I play another game, I would emphasize being popular makes a difference in being able to win.

When I first played the game and my friend was explaining all the rules to me, I was lost. There’s a lot to keep track of as far as turn selection and what resources produce which type of colony. It wasn’t until half way through the game where I finally understood what I was doing with Bjorn. Bjorn didn’t earn me a win, but I feel if I were to use his Buffalo again, I’d have a better chance at winning the game.

Scythe is one of the many board games funded on kickstarter which led to it’s release in August of 2016. Stonemaier Games is based in St. Louis, MO and specializes in creating memorable board games which specialize in entrepreneurial mechanics. Scythe is the only game I have played from Stonemaier Games, but since Scythe’s release, there have been expansions released for the base game. One apparently includes hot air balloons, which I haven’t played yet.

Playing Scythe was fun. I don’t think I will personally purchase my own copy of Scythe because I have two friends who own the base game. Usually I’m not a fan of entrepreneurial type games, but I would make an exception to play Scythe. 

I wasn’t able to attend the Throne of Eldraine pre-release last weekend. My brother was kind enough to snag me a pre-release kit when he played on Saturday. In my pre-release kit was a code for six free Throne of Eldraine boosters on Magic: the Gathering: Arena. This caused me to re-download Arena even though I had already uninstalled it twice from my laptop. I have mixed feelings around Arena which caused me to type this post today.

I first downloaded Arena because of time. I barely have time after work to exercise, cook dinner, do laundry and go to sleep. Playing Magic in person doesn’t fit into my after work routine. I appreciate the convenience of logging into Arena and getting matched with another player in the comfort of my apartment. Completing the daily tasks is motivating due to the reward of extra coins. This in turn can be spent on booster packs. It’s a way where I can earn cards without having to put actual money into the format. That’s about the only positive thing I can say towards Arena. 

It boggles my mind how there isn’t a mobile version of Arena. It would be 1000 times easier for me to get a game of Magic in on my lunch break versus having to pull out my laptop after a long day at work. Many other competitive card games utilize a phone app including Eternal published by Dire Wolf. Many other Magic players would play Arena if it was available as an app. For a well established, gaming company, Wizards of the Coast has been missing the mark in terms of making Arena accessible.

Another mild inconvenience is Arena takes up a bit of memory. I don’t have a gaming laptop, so my memory is precious. Arena has many network patches and updates which causes the game to grow in size. This helps with the realism of the game, but also doesn’t work for me. If Arena was available in a mobile platform, I could play the game on my phone versus my limited capacity on my laptop.

At this moment, Arena is front and center on my home screen. I’m getting enough boosters to build a Throne of Eldraine Black & White Knight deck. I’m hoping to use that deck in standard play if I obtain enough Black & White cards. Arena has kinks to work out, but it has loads of potential to become a legitimate, online gaming experience.

Fall is coming which means trips to the Apple Orchard, pumpkin carving, hanging Halloween decorations and playing scary video games. Besides Fall themed activities, it also means a new Magic: The Gathering block is being released, but this one has me rather intrigued. It’s titled Throne of Eldraine and it’s a story book themed Magic set. Normally, I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of fairy tales, but this seems to intertwine the “lighter” tales with a darker edge. I wanted to preview this set and share my excitement for this set.

Throne of Eldraine is described on Magic: the Gathering’s website as a “storybook land of castles and cauldrons”. Part of my love for the Magic: the Gathering pre-releases is the lore behind each set. There’s a story going on underneath all of the games everyone gets to play. I try to purchase a bundle which consists of boosters, a deck box, plenty of lands and a special booklet containing extra art and story background behind the set. After researching, I found the booklets were discontinued which is a shame because the booklet would be perfect for Throne of Eldraine. No matter what, I intend on purchasing boosters or a pre-release kit for this set.

Throne of Eldraine is open for pre-order for both local game stores and for Magic: the Gathering Arena. The pre-release will happen on Friday September 27th with the actual release being on October 4th. Pre-releases are one of my favorite ways to play Magic because I get to play with the cards early, but also being challenged by having to create a deck without knowing which cards I will pull. I’m getting better at putting decks together, but it’s still a challenge for me. If you’re playing in this pre-release, tell me what you think of some of the new cards in the comments below.

Gen Con is so much more than spending a bunch of money at the exhibitor hall. In between board game purchases, developers host players to demo their games. Three months before Gen Con, you can register for game demos, often these events are free. One of the demos I registered for was a space exploration game titled Lander. As our demo leader Dan stated, it’s loosely inspired by The Settlers of Catan, but in space.

Lander is a space themed strategy game where players take on the role of corporations to complete missions in space. There are three playing styles within the game, but in the demo version, we played the basic simulation. The win condition in the basic simulation is to have seven completed mission stars. In order to complete missions, you need to complete your crew and gain resources. It’s more complex than what it sounds which is where the challenge comes in. I lost the game because I didn’t attach the right characteristics to the right crew members. As a result, I couldn’t complete the mission.

Unlike The Settlers of Catan, Lander puts more focus on negotiation. There’s an hour glass within the game which represents the time you have to successfully negotiate with another player. It’s funny because one of the players in our demo group hates Catan with a passion because of how you can be a jerk in the game, yet they ended up loving this game once we finished.

Immediately, I wanted to purchase this game after I completed it. However, Lander isn’t out yet. It will be an upcoming Kickstarter campaign launching in March of next year. What makes Lander a unique campaign is their #playbeforeyoupledge. Many local game stores will receive a copy of Lander, which allows players who couldn’t attend Gen Con to play Lander and determine if they will back it in March.

Lander is a complex strategy game that needs to be played multiple times. It was more challenging than I had anticipated, which makes it worth replaying. One of my good friends loves The Settlers of Catan, and I want to introduce her to this game. Lander will be on a future Kickstarter campaign, which will launch in March next year. I plan on writing a blog post about this game once it gets closer to the Kickstarter launch. Otherwise, feel free to browse through Lander’s website and check if your local game store will have a copy to play.

My blogging schedule has been irregular lately due to attending Gen Con in Indianapolis last weekend. Gen Con was one of the best conventions I have ever attended and I plan to write about my experience soon. Hopefully, my blog posts will be on a regular schedule since I don’t have any more out-of-town vacations or conventions to go to. I took this Monday off from work because I figured I would need a day to recover from the convention. Besides catching up on housework, I decided to finish playing Heavy Rain, a game I started almost two months ago, but couldn’t find time to finish. Heavy Rain had a mysterious story, but it’s a dated game in terms of graphics and the controls.

Heavy Rain is a psychological thriller launched by game developer Quantic Dream. The game centralizes on four playable characters: Ethan, a father suffering from PTSD, Scott Shelby a PI, Norman Jayden, an FBI agent and Madison, a photojournalist. All of the characters are wrapped up in solving the mystery of the “Origami Killer”. The Origami Killer kidnaps boys and forces the parents to perform trials to see how much they love their kids. If the parents fail their trials, they won’t be able to save their son from drowning in a sewer grate. Various chapters are told by the characters as they uncover little by little the secret to the Origami Killer’s identity.

The story itself is rather creepy. There were a couple chapters with jump scares, but it was far and few in between. I hate playing video games with jump scares because I can’t focus on the game. I wasn’t expecting how the story was going to play out which allowed me to feel surprised by the reveal of the killer’s identity. As the chapters continue, the chance of killing one of the playable characters is high. On my first play-through, one of my characters died as that tends to happen in these types of games.

The number one deterrent for wanting to replay this game is the controls. The controls feel unnatural. To move each of the characters, you have to hold down the right trigger for the entire movement. I would much rather use a joystick to move my character because it’s more seamless with the controller. Another slightly annoying factor with the controls is all the QTE. QTE or Quick Time Events is when a series of buttons comes up in rapid succession meaning the player has to hit the buttons on the controller in response. I don’t mind QTE sequences, but the buttons during some chapters felt really weird. There were times when the QTE was trying to direct me to move my controller in a certain way and I wasn’t comprehending what I was supposed to do. As a result, there were certain QTEs I had to replay more than others and that became obnoxious.

Heavy Rain is one of those games that’s dated, but it inspired countless other games since then. I respect Heavy Rain as being a dramatic and well-made game at the time of its release. I struggle with wanting to replay this game again. I purchased Heavy Rain in a two-pack with Beyond Two Souls. I plan to play Beyond Two Souls despite Heavy Rain’s terrible control settings. It’s worth it to play Heavy Rain as the story is worth experiencing.

One way I play more TTRPGs is to join various Facebook groups. There’s a local group that I’m a part of and I can occasionally find one-shot games to join. Last month I drove to the Source Comics & Games to partake in a small campaign utilizing the Star Frontiers rule book. Having never played Star Frontiers before, I would recommend it for any one-shot campaign as I had a blast.

Combine 80’s sci-fi action films with DnD and that’s how I would describe Star Frontiers. Star Frontiers is set in the center of a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way. In this setting, ships can jump to the “Void” allowing ships to travel to various planets. The basic game takes place in the “Frontier Sector” where four races have come together to form the United Planetary Federation which is similar to Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets. After acknowledging the background of the Star Frontier, this is where the role-playing session begins.

The four races to pick from were Humans, Dralasites, Vrusk, and Yazirian. I picked Dralasite which reminds me of the adipose in David Tennant’s run of Doctor Who. The Dralasites have a voice box, so in the actual DnD session, I used my “alien” voice. It helped to make the character sound more real. The Dralasites can have as many limbs equal to their dexterity divided by 10, rounded up. I didn’t roll high on my dexterity, so I only had four limbs, but it would have been cool if I had so many limbs that I looked like a squishy octopus.

Our campaign started in a bar where we saved a fellow Yazarian from some bounty hunters. Our team decided to help this Yazarian locate the treasure in this pyramid statue. One of my favorite parts of our session was when we were fighting these poisonous spiders. Once we defeated them, I touched the poison on the wall. The DM advised me not to do that, but I did anyway. I rolled a critical success and became “immune” to the poison. I created a vaccine I could use for the other players. The DM was shocked.

Our one-shot lasted about four hours. The time completely flew by as I became immersed in the 80s space nostalgia of Star Frontiers. If you’re looking for a completely new system, I would recommend this one because who doesn’t love 80’s sci-fi films?

It’s been a rough start for me this week trying to get back to reality after attending Twin Cities Pride all last weekend. I had a blast walking around and taking pictures. I decided to spend my Sunday after Pride writing about this new card game I tried out with friends titled Cultists & Cthulhu. If you read any of my board game reviews, you shouldn’t be surprised how much I enjoy any game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. I found this game at Con of the North, a gaming convention I attended in February. This would be a perfect game to pack for a convention, or to a brewery.

Cultists & Cthulhu is a card game where players are trying to roll dice to complete rituals. On a single turn players will draw cards from the purple deck. These cards will either be cultists or minus cards which impact another player’s dice roll. Cultists are the most important card in the game because to complete a ritual, you need a cultist in play. This is where the game becomes tricky because you can steal cultists from other players. This is how I lost the game because my friend stole my cultist, so I couldn’t complete the rituals.

Once a cultist is in play, the player has to roll 4’s, 5’s, or 6’s to receive ritual tokens to be placed on a ritual card. The twist on this is if you roll at least three 1s and 2s in one roll, the cultist loses their sanity and has to be discarded. Fortunately, I rolled extremely well, so this never happened to me. My friend, however, had to discard two of her cultists in one game. I like the dice roll aspect of the game because it makes every game different.

Winning the game includes completing a ritual that earns points. Each ritual card has a book icon on the bottom left. This is the amount of ritual tokens needed to complete a ritual. The Cthulhu symbol on the right of the card is the amount of points received once the ritual has been completed. The first player to have twenty-one points worth of completed rituals wins the game.

Cultists & Cthulhu is a sinister card game that’s perfect for any Lovecraftian fan. Prolific Games, the publisher behind Cultists & Cthulhu, is a local MN-based board game company. It gives me a sense of pride to share my love for a board game crafted in my state. To purchase Cultists & Cthulhu, head to Prolific Games online store where you can find the many fabulous card games to add to your game collection.

On Sunday, I drove to Rochester, MN to participate in the Magic the Gathering: Modern Horizons Pre-Release. This will be the third pre-release I have attended since rejuvenating my interest in Magic: The Gathering. I’m still an amateur player, however, playing in these events has given me the confidence to keep playing the game. I had a blast playing with the new cards, but I also wanted to share some general tips for drafting in Magic that one of my friends sent me.

Modern is a format in Magic where decks are built with at least sixty cards versus standard Magic where decks have forty cards. Me and two other friends participated in this pre-release except it wasn’t like a typical pre-release I attended, it was a draft. Drafting in Magic can be difficult. Drafting is where everyone opens a booster pack and picks only one card. The pack gets passed to the next player and they pick a card from the pack. This means I need to pick cards from what’s passed to me without knowing what cards were picked by other players. I chose to make a blue/white deck with flying creatures.

My deck wasn’t that great. I found the other players in our group had more “aggressive” decks. This means their decks worked faster than mine. I only won one game out of twelve games (as I said, I’m still an amateur). After this experience, my friend sent me an article about what to look for when drafting. It’s titled BREAD which stands for:

B – Bombs. These are the super powerful cards. This could mean creatures that can’t be removed from the game easily or instants that can remove many creatures at once. It’s a card that you can’t pass up, so pick this card first in a draft.

R – Removal. These are cards that remove creatures or artifacts. If a deck doesn’t have removal, it’s useless. Creatures make up a deck, but the deck needs to be defensive.

E – Evasion! Choosing creatures that are difficult to block. This includes finding abilities such as flying, deathtouch, unblockable or I find menace to be an obnoxious ability. My deck was based around flying creatures, but the deck failed. That’s because of . .  . 

A – Aggro. This is why my deck failed. Aggro refers to filling up a mana curve. This means you want to cast a creature card every turn if able. This means choosing creatures that are cheap to cast. My flyers were great creatures, but often required at least 3 sometimes even 5 mana to cast. This means by the time I could cast a creature, my opponent had at least three or four creatures out at once. This cost me almost all of my games. 

D- Duds! These are the cards no one wants. I was playing a blue/white flying deck, but I still found cards that were green or black which didn’t work with my color scheme. This happens to everyone at a draft where you’re forced to take cards no one wants. These cards can be sorted out when the deck building begins. 

Even though my deck sucked, I liked the cards I drafted. I pulled a couple “Phantom Ninja” which cost three mana. Their special ability is they can’t be blocked. This is useful because anytime I attack with them, my opponent can’t do anything about them. I also liked my “Wall of One Thousand Cuts.” It’s a wall that provides a blocking creature for my deck. I also like the artwork on “Oneirophage.” This is a squid illusion in which every time I draw a card, I put a +1 / +1 counter on Oneirophage. This squid could become powerful as my turns progressed.

As I reflect on the pre-release, I learned valuable deck-building skills. Deck building is the hardest thing for me to grasp in Magic: The Gathering. Once I have a successful deck, I’m good to go. I’m trying to play more Magic because, in August, I’m going to Gen Con. If I can win at least one game in Gen Con, I would be thrilled.

Playing video games will always be a hobby of mine, but the time I have to play them has drastically decreased. At my full-time job, I often have to stay late past the hours I’m supposed to. I drive home from work where I cook dinner, work out and then once I get an ounce of free time, I want to go to bed to get the sleep my body needs. Weekends have become busier with me and my fiancé attempting to plan a wedding. I won’t ever abandon gaming as a hobby, but I have accepted that I don’t have as much time for it as I used to. I still want to keep up with latest releases and I wanted to share with you about which video games I’m highly anticipating.

Jedi Fallen Order – November 15th 2019

The trailer dropped at Star Wars Celebration in Chicago. I remember playing Star Wars Battlefront in 2003 with one of my childhood friends. I have avoided the new Star Wars Battlefront games thanks to EA’s policies of having to pay to unlock items. Since Jedi: Fallen Order is a single player-based game, I will enjoy this a lot more.

Jedi: Fallen Order is set after Episode III when Order 66 was initiated. Not all the Jedi’s were murdered, but many of them were forced to go into hiding. Cal was training to be a Jedi, but now works as a scrapper on the planet, Bracca. After an unfortunate incident where one of his fellow workers falls off a ledge, Cal uses some of The Force to save him. This exposes Cal and he’s forced to flee from the army of Stormtroopers sent to finish him.

This game has a lot of potential because of its departure from Star Wars Battlefront which pissed off a lot of gaming fans. Jedi: Fallen Order is released on November 15th on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. It’s also being released three days after The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+

Man of Medan – August 30th 2019

During the Polar Vortex in February (where the temperatures dropped to -30), I was playing Until Dawn. Until Dawn is a horror game which is hilarious to me since I’m not a huge fan of horror games to begin with. This had the perfect level of jump scares combined with a great setting and fun characters to play as. Immediately after completing Until Dawn, I went to follow the developer, Supermassive Games, on Twitter. This is where I discovered Man of Medan, the latest game Supermassive Games had been working on.

Man of Medan is based partially on true events. The Ourang Medan was a ship in the 1940s where the entire crew perished under suspicious circumstances. The main story is centered on five characters who are investigating an old 1940s shipwreck. The characters are Julie, Conrad, Alex, Brad and Fliss. Man of Medan will be similar to Until Dawn as certain decisions made within the game will impact the final ending. After making a crucial decision in the game, you can’t reload saves. This means that you’re stuck with the decision you made.

Man of Medan releases on August 30th, 2019. I highly recommend playing Until Dawn before the release of Man of Medan 

That’s all the games I’m anticipating. It helps when my fiancé is subscribed to Game Informer because then I can keep up to date with video games every month. I’m trying to use my off days from work to catch up on my video game back log, so that when these games release, I’m ready to devote all my time to them.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a Star Trek fan. That’s not to say I don’t like Star Trek, I have never sat down and watched an episode. I now have access to Hulu thanks to my subscription to Spotify, and I have considered watching the original series or Star Trek: Next Generation. When my uncle bought Star Trek: Ascendancy, I wasn’t sure if this game would be for me because of my limited Star Trek knowledge. I’m astonished because I thought this game was massively addicting.

Star Trek: Ascendancy was published by GaleForce Nine which is a company also producing the Doctor Who board game which is another game I deeply enjoyed. Star Trek: Ascendancy allows the player to choose out of four factions to travel deep space with. These include: the Federation, Romulans, Klingons, and the Cardassians (which I believe is pronounced similarly to the Kardashians?). I picked the Romulans as everyone in my gaming group had wanted to play the other factions. The objective is to build up your fleet and take over another faction or acquire five Ascendancy tokens.

From the above picture, this is towards the middle of the game. To win the game, it’s crucial to explore different planets. They can net resources for the faction which can be utilized to build or upgrade ships. This allows for better success in intergalactic space battles.

Each faction starts with a card that gives them an added benefit to the game. I had “the Romulan cloaking device” which allowed me to strike first in space battles. I never used the device because my main premise was to explore other planets. Another aspect of the game is offering “trade agreements”. These agreements are established between planets to avoid conflict and gather resources. Trade agreements are violated when you betray the faction and attack them instead. In our game, I had a trade agreement with my brother. I wholeheartedly believe that if we had time to finish our game, he would have stabbed me in the back and attacked me.

I will admit, that turn orders are extremely time-consuming. As a player, my attention wavered because I was waiting for my turn. Turns are split into a “build” and a “command” phase. Building ships and formulating upgrades always happens first. Once you spend your resources, you flip the turn card over and command your ships across the galaxy. As my gaming group started to learn the rules, turns weren’t as lengthy, but it felt like a round took forever.

Ultimately, I did enjoy this game and I’m not a “Trekkie”. I’m inspired to watch more Star Trek, so I can understand where all the references come from. I have heard nothing but good things about Star Trek: Next Generation. I think that might be my new TV-watching project after finishing up How To Get Away With Murder. Until then, I’ll keep up my galactic conquest with the Romulans.